spidery
adjUS /ˈspaɪ.dɚ.i/
Etymology From spider + -y.
1
Like a spider.
- “En passant,” if nothing else, would have revealed to Joe, in this imitation of a better trick, the hand of Eugene. […] “Sometimes,” said Eskew, “I think that ’Gene Bantry is jest a leetle bit spiderier than he is lazy.[…]”1905 October, Booth Tarkington, “‘Outer Darkness’”, in The Conquest of Canaan: A Novel, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, pages 128–129:
- High up on the viaduct, and approached by a spidery staircase from the street, it looks down on Southwark Cathedral.1948 March and April, “A Keypoint in an Intensive Service”, in Railway Magazine, page 115:
2
Characterized by many spindly extensions.
- The spidery construction looked like it would fall apart in a stiff breeze.
- This shelf is deeply cut into by rivers, so that the line has to cross a series of spidery lattice-girder bridges.1960 April 23, H. P. White, “The Railways of Sierra Leone”, in Railway Magazine, page 235:
1 more example
- At one point, her spidery abstractions gave way to a series of abruptly syncopated hits, like a deranged allusion to the Thelonious Monk tune “Evidence.”2015 June 18, Nate Chinen, “Review: Eric Revis Trio Lets the Music Lead the Way at the Jazz Gallery”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 16 Jun 2022:
3
Suggestive of cobwebs; spiderweb-like.
4
Infested with or containing many spiders.
5
Communications, Journalism, Literature, Media, Publishing, Writing Figuratively Cramped or illegible; especially when spiky.
- 'I cannot make head or tail of it,' confessed Miss Barrowford, as the senseful fingers crossed and recrossed the scrawl, now following a vague spidery line, now drawn where no visible mark appeared to lead. 'Is there any meaning, do you think?'1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries:
- Derived terms
- spideriness